Foothills County has made the Alberta Utilities Commission aware of its opposition to the Frank Lake Solar Project.

Reeve Delilah Miller says they don't want these solar farms on productive farmland and they're concerned about their eventual clean-up.

"As we've found out with the Orphan Well Association, a lot of these companies are from overseas, they come in, they'll set up oil and gas and in this case it's solar or wind, and get the government grant money, get all the perks that go with it, the land owners are left after 25 years with no recourse to these companies and they're left with the clean up," she says.

Miller says a major piece of the directive the provincial government left out is a surety bond to protect Alberta taxpayers from the eventual clean up of these sites.

"We know over in Europe that was not happening and so a lot of these things are being dumped into landfills and our landfills just don't have the capacity to hold all of these solar panels and all of these wind turbine blades coming at them and we've seen in the U.S. where they're being buried in the desert, they're being buried, so if green energy is to be truly green then we have to follow through and make sure that it's cleaned up properly."

Everyone wants an electric car, she says, but material in the batteries comes from lithium mines and she's heard about tailings ponds from those that can be lethal.

She says there is a solar recycling pilot project elsewhere but that's all there is.

"You've got our neighbouring municipalities with over a million and a half solar panels, where are those going to go? The metal and the glass, there is some reclamation for that but you also have crystalline and lots of chemical in those panels and there is no reclamation for any of that."

She says Foothills County needs to go that one step further to make sure they and taxpayers aren't left holding the bag.